Christine Tillman at Material

For immediate release:

March 2, 2009

Contact: Hamlett Dobbins, 901.219.1943, hamlettdobbins@hotmail.com.

Material is excited to announce its forty-third exhibition: Christine Tillman: General Merriment.
Christine Tillman: General Merriment will run for one night only with a reception for the artists on Friday, March 6th from 6-8 pm.

The artist will present a lecture on her work hosted by Rhodes College in Blount Auditorium in Buckman Hall on March 5th at 7 p.m.

(The talk will be at Rhodes College but the show will be at Material.)

Christine Tillman makes things every day in her Baltimore studio. She considers herself a very flat sculptor who probably makes even more drawings than she does sculptures. The work in General Merriment includes sculpture and drawings dealing exclusively with celebratory imagery and materials. Tillman currently lives in Baltimore Maryland and holds an MFA in Painting and Drawing from the University of Iowa and exhibits her work frequently in the Mid Atlantic and beyond, including exhibitions at Transformer in Washington DC, Current Gallery in Baltimore, Redux in Charleston SC, and the Urban Institute for Contemporary Art in Grand Rapids, MI. She is a member of the Upper School Faculty at the Park School of Baltimore, MD.
Additional information on the artist and her work can be found at http://www.christinebucktontillman.com/.

Material is located at 2553 Broad Avenue. Parking is available on both the north and south sides of Broad Avenue.

Jpg information: “tillman.jpg” is Christine Tillman’s Secret Garden, Ink, graphite, marker on Bristol, 18x24”, 2008.

Demetrius Oliver at Clough-Hanson Gallery

Contact: Hamlett Dobbins, Director
Clough-Hanson Gallery, Rhodes College
(901) 843-3442

For Immediate Release:
Clough-Hanson Gallery at Rhodes College is excited to announce its fourth show of the season: Demetrius Oliver: Sidereal.

Sidereal will run from February 27 through March 27, 2009.

Please note: the gallery will be closed from March 14 through March 23 for spring break.

The artist will present a lecture on his work in Blount Auditorium in Buckman Hall on Thursday, February 26th at 7 p.m.

The reception for the show will be held in the gallery from 6 - 8 p.m., Friday February 27, 2009.

Demetrius Oliver’s photograph, Till, was a standout from last season’s Taking Aim: Selections from the Elliot L. Perry Collection. (The haunting image was a profile shot of the artist covered in generous amount of chocolate frosting.) This one person show will gather a number of large-scale photographs, sculpture, slide-projection, and video in an effort to articulate a visual form for the cycles of thought, investigation, and experimentation endemic to artistic practice and self-discovery.

Demetrius Oliver has participated in solo exhibitions at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, P.S.1. MoMA Project Space, the Atlanta Contemporary Art Center, D’Amelio Terras in New York as well as Inman Gallery in Houston. Oliver received his BFA from Rhode Island School of Design and completing his MFA at the University of Pennsylvania in 2004, Oliver has been a resident at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Maine, a Core Fellow at The Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, a resident at the Studio Museum in Harlem, and a recipient of The Rema Hort Mann Foundation Visual Art Grant.

If you should have any questions please don’t hesitate to contact Gallery Director Hamlett Dobbins at Clough-Hanson Gallery (901) 843-3442, via email at dobbinsh@rhodes.edu.

Jpg information: “oliver_moon.jpg” is Demetrius Oliver’s Moon, Digital c-print mounted on sintra, 48x50, Image courtesy the artist, D’Amelio Terras, New York and Inman Gallery, Houston.

A Class of Hicks at MCA

The great Anthony Lee has organized A Class of Hicks, an exhibition of over 20 artists who are former students of the legendary Bill Hicks. This list includes: Sherry Adcox, Christian Carlson, Reed Chappell, Roger Cleaves, Will Dixon, Grier Edmundson, Benin Ford, Derek Fordjour, Adam Geary, Bill Hicks, Eliot Irwin, Seth Kelly, Anthony D. Lee, Colin McClain, Stephanie Pierce, Paul Rice, Ira Sachs, Adam Shaw and Mike Terry. Should be great. The show opens at MCA Friday, February 20th from 6-8 pm.

Douglas Degges and Noelle Smith at Material

For immediate release:

February 17, 2009

Contact: Hamlett Dobbins, 901.219.1943, hamlettdobbins@hotmail.com.

Material is excited to announce its forty-second exhibition: Douglas Degges and Noelle Smith: Walk Slowly.

Douglas Degges and Noelle Smith: Walk Slowly will run for one night only with a reception for the artists on Friday, February 20th from 6-8 pm.

Douglas Degges is currently pursuing his B.A. in studio arts at Rhodes College. His work was featured in the group exhibition Entertainment Value at Odessa last fall. Degges’ studio practice is intensely interested in how we, as human beings, take from and negotiate different ways of seeing our world. For the artist, abstraction is the most adequate and appropriate for this; it provides the detachment and freedom needed for exploration and experimentation.

Noelle Smith is also pursuing her B.A. in studio arts at Rhodes College. Her work describes the process of experiencing daily life as a series of stimuli followed by a personal, internal dialogue only to be followed by yet more stimuli. Her pieces vary in pace and materials, which work together to create a language to describe a particular mood, situation, or event. While Smith’s individual pieces have specific references and can stand alone, when viewed together the work functions as an archive, with reoccurring visual languages such as color palette, particular found materials, and figurative characters that link everything back to a source.

Material is located at 2553 Broad Avenue. Parking is available on both the north and south sides of Broad Avenue.

Jpg information: “degges.jpg” is Douglas Degges’ Untitled, Acrylic on panel, 17x14”, 2008. “nsmith.jpg” is Noelle Smith’s Untitled, Mixed media on paper, 2x2”, 2009.

University Place Gaines Upham Upgrade

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Date: TBD
Contact: Elizabeth Alley or Laura Caroline Johnson, 901-454-0474

University Place Gaines Upham Upgrade

Memphis, TN – UrbanArt, the City of Memphis, Memphis Housing Authority and the development firms of McCormack Baron Salazar and Community Capital, are pleased to announce that artist Tim Upham has been selected to complete an art enhancement project at the newly established University Place. Located on Crump Boulevard between Pauline and I-240, University Place, a HOPE VI Revitalization, is part of a broad public/private initiative sponsored by Memphis Housing Authority.

Upham will be fabricating a landmark sculpture for the front of the Memphis complex. “I like for my pieces to be understood in various ways, abstract at first and then becoming more representational as the viewer continues to examine it,” says Upham. The artist was chosen for his enthusiasm for working with the community and the given environment of the site. The selection committee was made up of local community members, artists, and members of the development team.

Tim Upham, hailing from Fort Collins, Colorado, has done various public art projects in Florida, Wyoming, and predominantly the Colorado areas. His delicate, colorful, and site-specific projects have been featured at community centers and parks. These whimsical works are generally composed of stainless steel, glass marbles, and/or LED solar powered lights, giving each a uniquely playful, yet substantial feel to their individual settings.

Because the University Place project includes affordable housing for senior residents and a mixed-income rental development, as well as pedestrian, local vehicular, and interstate traffic, Upham’s work will be seen from several vantage points and enjoyed by many age groups in the neighborhood.

The mission of the UrbanArt Commission is to create a dynamic, vibrant, nurturing community through art and design. The UAC is funded in part by the City of Memphis, Greater Memphis Arts Council, Tennessee Arts Commission and the Hyde Foundation. This project is funded through the City of Memphis Percent for Art plan. For more information, please visit the UAC website at www.urbanartcommission.org.